I am searching for a selfhosted and secure (end to end encryption) chat platform for my family (5-20 users), possibly one i can host on a raspi.

Is matrix a good choice, or should i try something else?

  • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Matrix is fine but quite slow. Has excellent clients and is feature rich.

    There’s also an app called Circles that turns your Matrix chats into a social feed.

    XMPP is fine but the available clients are outdated and ugly.

    Session is also self-hostable and anonymous.

    • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      Matrix is slow on large instances, but that’s not the case here, especially if no federation is done.

      And the issue with sluggishness is currently the main development focus with ElementX/matrixX that will become mainstream matrix soon. With that even the large instances are extremely fast.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        Matrix is slow everywhere. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Element X is also super slow. Waiting 5-10 secs for messages to appear every time I open the app. I know what I’m talking about.

            • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
              0·
              13 days ago

              Thanks for confirming that you’re full of shit.

              Because there are very very few Sliding Synch (which is the part of X that makes it faster) instances at the moment and only one that has a major userbase…

  • JJLinux@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    I just have my kids, wife, close friends and in-laws on SimpleX.

    Sure, some of them use mainstream stuff as well, but if they want to reach me, that’s their only option.

    Matrix is a pretty good choice for self-hosted. The reason I don’t do it is because I’ve become lazy lately.

  • foremanguy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    For me you can try to host a SimpleX server and then connect to it (with SimpleX it is pretty as much secure to run its one server than use a public one).

    Or maybe use XMPP but try to use a good encryption protocol. This option is great in term of power efficiency, XMPP would run great on a RasPI

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Simplex chat would work

    However, I wouldn’t host on a Raspberry Pi or even at home for that matter. Get a VPS and host it there. Linode even has a one click app install for Simplex Chat

  • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    You could try Jami. It’s peer to peer, so essentially any participants are self-hosting it. Its E2E encrypted, supports group messaging, voice and video calling, has easily ‘linkable’ mobile and desktop apps for all platforms and requires no email address or phone number to use. It’s also the only messenger I’m aware of which is endorsed by the Free Software Foundation. I highly recommend it 👌

  • oldfart@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    XMPP. It just works, requires very little resources, is stable and has decent clients.

    I would go with Snikket instead of Prosody if I had been starting now.

    Conversations on phones, Dino or Gajim on PCs, plus a conversejs install on the xmpp server, to allow web access when needed.

    Conversations is easy for the family to figure out.

    • Mom Nom Mom@nom.momEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      This is what my family (and a few friends) use. We have been using it for a while now because it just works. Also, the kids have never complained about using Conversations, or about using it only for us (like if you have that one family member who won’t leave SMS behind - we’re that guy, I guess), and we can make as many channels as we need for the house, the kids, with each kid individually, for our MTG cards, with our couple of friends that use it, etc…

      I don’t personally do the hosting, so I can’t speak to that. That’s the hubby’s thing
      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      So all of these encrypt the conversations so not even the server admin can access them?

      • Lemmchen@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        XMPP only does it with certain client extensions. And Matrix only does it when the rooms are set up this way. SimpleX does what you want, but is kind of unintuitive for the average user.
        I say go with Signal, it does what you want and is idiot-proof.

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          To be fair, pretty much all major XMPP clients have adopted OMEMO encryption, so doesn’t seem like much of an issue.

        • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
          0·
          14 days ago

          It is literally one setting in Matrix to force all rooms to only do encrypted messages.

          Signal is pretty unintuitive when it comes to multiple devices per user, device transfers after a device has been lost,etc.

          • essteeyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            14 days ago

            Signal is perfectly good under normal usage. Everything is unintuitive when it comes to extremes like losing your device.

            • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
              0·
              14 days ago

              Wouldn’t say that. With most Matrix Clients, WhatsApp, etc. it’s far easier. Especially from a perspective of a elderly,less tech adept user.

            • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
              0·
              13 days ago

              Signal is annoying to use if you don’t have a smartphone you can trust, since they do not allow registration from desktop. So either an Android VM or Signal-cli. But maybe it was just a one-off bug that the desktop client didn’t bind to signal-cli for me. Still, the fact that you need an unofficial command-line application just to register makes it not exactly user-friendly.

              • essteeyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                13 days ago

                I imagine that most people’s families will find Singal easier than using a CLI program anyway. It’s rare to find an entire family without typical cellphones.

                • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
                  0·
                  13 days ago

                  Yea, but a typical cellphone is not as easy to make private as a typical laptop or desktop. Lineage has some tradeoffs and not accessible on all devices, and Graphene needs even more specific, quite expensive hardware!

  • Im_old@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    I’ve been using matrix for years to this purpose, but moving to xmpp/prosody now

      • Im_old@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        Gajim on pc (I use arch btw - well endeavourOS because I can’t be bothered) and don’t remember what on android (there is the full list or clients and capabilities on xmpp.org)

      • Im_old@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        No.

        Yeah ok. First of all, because I can 😁. I mean z what’s good being an IT nerd if I can’t change stuff when I want?

        Jokes aside, I’ve been reading more recently on matrix and looks like there are some security issues in the design of the app/protocol. I’m on mobile now, I’ll look for sources when I’m on pc. Also I don’t like that it is a server centric system (so data is primarily on the server instead of the clients). Also it takes more resources than I was expecting. For less than 10 users I can’t have less than 4gb of ram (on a dedicated debian server, running docker) or it swaps so much it kills the system.

        So basically I’m testing out if xmpp is a better system for those issues.

        • chordsphere1@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          Conversations being paid on the google play store is what’s stopping me from going xmpp… I can’t just say “message me via xmpp, you can use the Conversations app”. Now I’d have to explain what F-Droid is and why would they even get another app store and enable “unknown apps”. it’s not doable. I remember telling my mom to install Signal (before I got into self hosting) because I deleted whatsapp and she got angry like she worked for the zuck, saying “what do you mean you don’t use whatsapp” with an astonished face, started lecturing me on why I was destroying my social life… That just made me realize right now they probably wouldn’t download conversations either…welp I just wanted to share

          • Im_old@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 days ago

            I know exactly what you mean. Just for general information, I’ve found another android client that I think it’s better than Conversations. It’s called Monocles chat (and it’s on f-droid). On matrix/xmpp I install the whatsapp bridge. I can convert a few close family members but no way everyone. For me it’s an acceptable compromise. I get the close members to use my servers/apps, everyone else through the bridge so I can at least have all the chat in one place

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    IP Internet Protocol
    RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
    SBC Single-Board Computer
    VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
    XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (‘Jabber’) for open instant messaging

    4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 12 acronyms.

    [Thread #809 for this sub, first seen 16th Jun 2024, 15:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • kugmo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    I know it’s not self hosted but why not Signal? Matrix is demanding on a SBC and your family would probably get the ‘unable to decrypt message, please re-verify keys’ error that happens in encrypted matrix group chats and Element does not have the best UI especially if you want your grandma to use it.

    • Senshi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      What’s your source on the reverify thing? I use matrix a lot, and this hasn’t been an issue I ever experienced anymore since they introduced cross-signing a couple years ago.

      Same goes for the common clients such as element. It has been clunky in the past, but after the past major overhauls ( also years ago now) everything has been silky smooth for me, if not better than others. The one thing left I prefer from Signal is the one-time photo share.

      Matrix is great, clients are great too, only the server part still is annoyingly complicated and messy. Would only recommend that for tinkerers, on that case it’s a great path to learning about the complexity of addressing lots of security concerns that others gloss over.

  • Nine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    XMPP is fantastic IMHO

    If you want to support a great project and have great uptime check out conversations.im

    I don’t recommend self hosting something you want available all the time. That being said everyone has different needs/uses 😊

  • adr1an@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    E2E is complicated, if you self-host for a group, having TLS and encrypting data at rest (storage) may be enough. Get a threat model. That being said, I would recommend snikket.org which is a superset of extensions over XMPP which is the open source IM that was the base of almost every app out there. Matrix and Rocket are both alright too. Depends too on your resources, synapse requires too much RAM (or so I heard)